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You Are Not My Sister!

November 30, 2007

You are not my sister. Sorry if that sounds hostile, abrasive, —rejective. But my other approach has not garnered very good results. You know the whole, “how’s that approach been working out for you” self-help assertion. That approach being that up until now as an identifying feminist I’ve always included you all as my sisters. It was automatic, by default. I did not need a face that matched my tribe. I did not need a familiar dialogue. I did not need common experiences. I did not need pandering, sycophancy, or praise. To welcome you as my sister, I simply needed opened kindness and to be allowed to reciprocate that kindness through getting to know, working through, coming together, reaching an understanding (regardless of how long it took) and most of all, never considering me your inferior or superior, but an equal, an equal that may or may not be at different junctions/junctures at any given moment, different junctions/junctures, not superior or inferior junctions/junctures, but different junctions/junctures. Superior/inferior dichotomies are abusive and is the reason we needed to be trusting sisters in the first place.

In my open arms, you all were my sisters unless you abused me. An abuse always received by surprise because I always forget to expect abuse from my sisters. It is like watching a traumatic reality unfold but never really believing it is a reality but a dream, then coming into focus to understand that it is in fact reality and not a dream.

Once the abuse was identified and you were made aware of it, I gave you time, I gave you an out, I made way for a recourse, yet you refused. Perhaps the abuse was more intoxicating, more rewarding, not as boring as a reliable will always be here sister but more of a spring-break sister. I don’t know the motive, I just know I don’t have time to dissect abuse. I cannot have spring-break sisters in my life, but real sisters that I can survive through the winter with, that I can share my blanket with without feeling resentment for being used, silenced, or not considered an equal. A loving sister does not pee in bed and expect her sister to sleep on that pee side. A loving and kind sister would also not volunteer to sleep in the other sister’s pee night after night knowing that peeing sister never intends to stop peeing in bed. She will however offer to help her change the sheets. She will also hug her sister when that sister is hurt and if she cannot find suitable words she will at the very least say, “I’m here if you need me”. She would not just remain silent and ignore her sister once her sister expressed pain.

A loving sister would understand that abuse provokes, invokes, incites, and perpetuates more abuse, therefore, a loving sister would not enable abuse by justifying and rationalising its use simply because that abuse is coming from a more favorable sister (that inferior/superior dichotomy creeps in once again) but would discourage it by demanding that the abuse is stopped and the abuser is held accountable. She would already know about abuse because it is what happens to sisters in this world. Abuse is part of a sister’s herstory and would not want another sister to relive that part of history.

Abusing, and enabling abuse is a sister deal breaker. Abusing me makes you no longer my sister but a stranger, well not even a stranger, a ghost, no, not a ghost, but a figment, a figment of a dream that failed to actualise, that is what you become after abusing me (and my sisters), a failed dream. Because even a stranger has potential, and since we have history, enough history to make me label you as not my sister, I no longer extend to you the privilege of a stranger.

From now on, not every woman is my sister by default. I just wonder if abuse is working out for these abusers. It must be in some way, there must be some pay off, seeing that its methodology does not seem to be dying out any time soon. But at what price? Abuse is alive and well, prospering, while sisterhood is dying. I wonder whom that benefits, what group.

I don’t read there, so no, nothing I ever say in entry form will be in reaction to that site. But, I can say now, by looking at the links that were praised, and how the very entry that was an injustice for me was framed as esteem for them, it does not look like a place that would welcome my type. Because Rachel still owes me an apology. But apparently to these people (yes I said these people, which includes anyone who are willing to unapologetically call others ignorant, absurd, etc, without ever so much of extending an understanding stance to them) are not a friend of mine and definitely not a sister because abuse is not acceptable. It was acceptable for Rachel to lift my comment and insult me personally but her and her supporters cannot see their abuse. Whatever. And no, it was not a general insult. She does not know me, period, and to define me is nothing more than hostile, abusive. To define me is to force me in a category for her to understand, for her to continue with her racist bullshit.

So back to my world here, no, it was no such reaction because that is not a hangout of mine and it does not look like it ever will be. I am anti-abuse. I will not be abused for solidarity sake. I’ve tried that route, it does not work. Period.

I generally disapprove of the idea of using forced familiarity or intimacy to create familiarity or intimacy with someone.

It amazes me that internet social relations can, surprisingly, reflect much of what goes on in the real world. Same ridiculously stupid behavior. Same deceptiveness and clique-i-ness. Little, boring people use anonymity/internet personalities as an excuse to wallow in the worst of themselves.

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Damned!
Oh, do ye ever stop to think what that word means when ye use it every day, so lightly, o’ yer wicked lives? No. Ye doan’t. Ye never stop to think what anything means, do ye? Well, I’ll tell ye. It means endless horrifyin’ torment, with yer poor sinful bodies stretched out on hot gridirons in the nethermost fiery pit of hell, and demons mockin’ ye while they waves cooling jellies in front of ye, and binds ye down tighter on yer dreadful bed. Aye, an’ the air’ll be full of the stench of burnt flesh and the screams of your nearest and dearest...
Ye know, doan't ye, what it feels like when ye burn yer hand in takin’ a cake out of the oven or wi’ a match when ye’re lightin’ one of they godless cigarettes? Aye. It stings wi’ a fearful pain, doan’t it? And ye run away to clap a bit o’ butter on it to take the pain away. Ah, but’"
(an impressive pause)
"there’ll be no butter in hell! Yer whoal body will be burnin’ and stingin’ wi’ that unbearable pain, and yer blackened tongues will be stickin’ out of yer mouth, and yer cracked lips will try to scream out for a drop of water, but no sound woan’t come because yer throat is drier nor the sandy desert and yer eyes will be beatin’ like great red-hot balls against yer shrivelled eyelids....” ---Amos Starkadder, Cold Comfort Farm.

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